Joplin,city, Jasper and Newton counties, in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri, U.S. It lies adjacent to Webb City, near the Kansas and Oklahoma borders. It was founded in 1871 by settled about 1840 by Tennesseean John Cox, who named it after for his friend the Reverend Harris Joplin, a Methodist missionary who , along with Cox, had come from Tennessee in about 1840was also an early settler. The discovery of lead and zinc ores in the area in 1849 the mid-1800s brought prosperity, and in 1873 Joplin merged with Murphysburg. When the mining boom collapsed in the 1930s, other industries were developed.Large tailing piles in the vicinity are virtually the only remnants of the once-thriving mining industry.

Now a shipping and trade centre for the area’s farm products, Joplin also has diversified manufactures, including chemicals, electric power units, and hydraulic pumpsprecision bearings, truck bodies, and asphalt roofing products. The city is the seat of Missouri Southern State College University (1937) and Ozark Christian College (1942). The Joplin school system received national recognition for the Joplin reading plan, an innovative program for the teaching of reading that was instituted in 1953 the 1950s and that was designed to improve reading skills in the elementary grades. The Mineral Museum (1931) displays models of mining processes, fossils, artifacts, and a pictorial history of Joplin. The Joplin Museum Complex includes the Tri-State Mineral Museum and the Dorothea B. Hoover Historical Museum, which displays items from Joplin’s mining era. George Washington Carver National Monument (1943), immediately southeast, preserves the birthplace of the eminent black agricultural scientist. The poet Langston Hughes was born in Joplin in 1902. Prairie State Park is 25 miles (40 km) to the north. Inc. town, 1871; city, 1873. Pop. (1991 2000) city, 45,504; Joplin MSA, 157,322; (2005 est.) city, 4147,287183; (2004 est.) Joplin MSA, 135164,985235.